TW201817270A - Auxiliary apparatus for a lighthouse positioning system - Google Patents

Abstract

An auxiliary apparatus for a lighthouse positioning system is provided. The lighthouse positioning system includes a first positioning base station and a second positioning base station, wherein the first positioning base station includes a first signal generator and a second signal generator and the second positioning base station includes a first signal generator and a second signal generator. The auxiliary apparatus calculates a first signal time sequence of the first signal generators, calculates a second signal time sequence of the second signal generators, and decides a third signal time sequence according to the first signal time sequence and the second signal time sequence. The third signal time sequence is not overlapped with both the first signal time sequence and the second signal time sequence. The auxiliary apparatus generates a plurality of signals according to the third signal time sequence.

Description

   Auxiliary device for a lighthouse positioning system   

The present invention relates to an auxiliary device; more specifically, the present invention relates to an auxiliary device for a lighthouse positioning system.

In Virtual Reality (VR) technology, how to accurately and quickly locate users in a physical space and detect the depth of field information in the physical space in order to simulate it in a three-dimensional virtual environment is very important. issue.

A virtual reality positioning technology that has been widely discussed recently is a lighthouse positioning technology, which uses two positioning base stations to locate a trackable device worn by a user (for example, a head-mounted display device (Head-Mounted Display; HMD)) to target users. In short, the two positioning base stations operate in turn, and each positioning base station first uses the first signal transmitter (such as: Infrared Light Emitting Diode (IR LED)) during its sweep cycle. ) Sends a synchronization signal, and then scans the actual space with the light beam (such as laser) from the second signal transmitter. The trackable device uses a plurality of sensors included in it to sense the synchronization signals and light beams from the positioning base station. The host at the back end calculates the position of the traceable device in the actual space based on the synchronization signal and light beam sensed by the traceable device, and then simulates it in a three-dimensional virtual environment.

Although beacon positioning technology can accurately locate traceable devices in a physical space, currently there is no technology that can cooperate with it to detect depth of field information in the physical space. Therefore, how to know the depth of field information when using the lighthouse positioning technology is an issue that needs to be overcome.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an auxiliary device for a lighthouse positioning system. The lighthouse positioning system includes a first positioning base station and a second positioning base station, wherein the first positioning base station includes a first signal transmitter and a second signal transmitter, and the second positioning base station includes a A first signal transmitter and a second signal transmitter. The auxiliary device includes a processor and a signal transmitter, and the two are electrically connected to each other. The processor calculates a first signal timing of one of the first signal transmitters based on the plurality of first sensing signal groups, and calculates a first signal timing of one of the second signal transmitters based on the plurality of second sensing signal groups. Two signal timing. Each of the first sensing signal sets is sensed by one of the first signal transmitters, and each of the second sensing signal sets is sensed by one of the second signal transmitters. The processor determines a third signal timing according to the first signal timing and the second signal timing, wherein the third signal timing does not overlap with the first signal timing, and the third signal timing does not coincide with the second signal timing. overlapping. The signal transmitter transmits a plurality of signals according to the third signal timing.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an auxiliary device for a lighthouse positioning system. The lighthouse positioning system includes a first positioning base station and a second positioning base station, wherein the first positioning base station includes a first signal transmitter and a second signal transmitter, and the second positioning base station includes a A first signal transmitter and a second signal transmitter. The auxiliary device includes a processor and a signal transmitter, and the two are electrically connected to each other. The processor determines that at least one first interference value caused by the plurality of first sensing signal groups to the signal transmitter is greater than a threshold value, and determines at least one caused by the plurality of second sensing signal groups to the signal transmitter. The second interference value is smaller than the threshold value, a first signal timing of one of the first signal transmitters is calculated according to the first sensing signal group, and a second signal timing is determined according to the first signal timing. Each of the first sensing signal groups is sensed from one of the first signal transmitters, each of the second sensing signal groups is sensed from one of the second signal transmitters, and the second signal timing is Does not overlap with the first signal timing.

The auxiliary device provided by the present invention avoids all signal timings used by the lighthouse positioning system, or avoids signal timings used by the lighthouse positioning system that cause greater interference, so the signals transmitted by the auxiliary device will not affect Beacon positioning systems cause interference. In addition, since the auxiliary device knows its signal timing, it will not be interfered by the signal transmitted by the lighthouse positioning system. Through the auxiliary device of the present invention, it is realized to simultaneously use a lighthouse positioning technology with high accuracy and explore depth of field information in a physical space.

The detailed technology and embodiments of the present invention are described below with reference to the drawings, so that those having ordinary knowledge in the technical field to which the present invention pertains can understand the technical features of the claimed invention.

10a, 10b, 10c, 10d, 10e‧‧‧Signal timing

11‧‧‧Auxiliary device

111‧‧‧ processor

113‧‧‧Signal transmitter

115‧‧‧ Receiver

12a, ..., 12b ‧‧‧ sensing signal group

13‧‧‧ positioning base station

131‧‧‧The first signal transmitter

133‧‧‧Second Signal Transmitter

14a, ..., 14b ‧‧‧ Sensing Signal Group

15‧‧‧ positioning base station

151‧‧‧The first signal transmitter

153‧‧‧Second Signal Transmitter

17‧‧‧Trackable device

20‧‧‧Signal timing

T1‧‧‧scan cycle

T2‧‧‧scan cycle

Figure 1A is a schematic diagram illustrating the structure of the auxiliary device 11 of the first embodiment; Figure 1B is a schematic diagram when the auxiliary device 11 and a lighthouse positioning system are placed in a physical space; Figure 1C is a first implementation Signal timing diagram of the method; and FIG. 2 is a signal timing diagram of the second embodiment.

The following will explain the auxiliary device for a lighthouse positioning system provided by the present invention through embodiments. However, these embodiments are not intended to limit the present invention to being implemented in any environment, application or manner as described in these embodiments. Therefore, the description of the embodiments is only for the purpose of explaining the present invention, rather than limiting the scope of the present invention. It should be understood that, in the following embodiments and drawings, elements not directly related to the present invention have been omitted and not shown, and the size of each element and the size ratio between the elements are merely examples, and are not intended to limit the present invention. Range.

The first embodiment of the present invention is an auxiliary device 11 for a lighthouse positioning system. The schematic diagram of its structure is depicted in FIG. 1A. The auxiliary device 11 includes a processor 111, a signal transmitter 113, and a receiver 115. The processor 111 is electrically connected to the signal transmitter 113 and the receiver 115. The processor 111 may be any of various processors, a central processing unit (CPU), a microprocessor, or other computing devices known to those having ordinary knowledge in the technical field to which the present invention pertains. The signal transmitter 113 is a device capable of transmitting signals (for example, an infrared laser transmitter, but not limited to this). The receiver 115 can be various devices capable of receiving signals and data. In this embodiment, the auxiliary device 11 is a device for measuring depth information of a physical space with energy. For example, the auxiliary device 11 may be a depth camera, but is not limited thereto.

FIG. 1B is a schematic diagram illustrating the simultaneous use of the auxiliary device 11 and a lighthouse positioning system in a physical space. It should be noted that FIG. 1B is a top view of the physical space, and the specific examples shown are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. The lighthouse positioning system includes two positioning base stations 13 and 15 and a traceable device 17. The positioning base station 13 includes a first signal transmitter 131 and a second signal transmitter 133, and the positioning base station 15 includes a first signal transmitter 151 and a second signal transmitter 153. For example, each of the first signal transmitters 131 and 151 may be an infrared light emitting diode (IR LED), and each of the second signal transmitters 133 and 153 may be an infrared laser emitter (IR) laser), and the auxiliary device 11 may be a device using infrared rays (for example, a depth-of-field camera).

The positioning base station 13 sends a synchronization signal with the first signal transmitter 131 in each of its sweep cycles T1, and then sends a signal (for example, a light beam) with the second signal transmitter 133 to scan the physical space. Similarly, the positioning base station 15 sends a synchronization signal with the first signal transmitter 151 in each scanning cycle T2, and then sends a signal (for example, a beam) with the second signal transmitter 153 to scan the physical space. Please refer to FIG. 1C, which depicts the signal timings 10a, 10b, 10c, and 10d corresponding to the first signal transmitter 131, the second signal transmitter 133, the first signal transmitter 151, and the second signal transmitter 153, respectively. The traceable device 17 includes a plurality of sensors (not shown) for sensing signals transmitted by the first signal transmitters 131 and 151 and the second signal transmitters 133 and 153. For example, the traceable device 17 may be a head-mounted display (HMD), but is not limited thereto.

It should be noted that the details of the operation of the lighthouse positioning system are not the focus of the present invention, so it will not be redundant. The following description will focus on the technical problems and corresponding technical means that the auxiliary device 11 will face when it is used in conjunction with the lighthouse positioning system.

As mentioned above, the auxiliary device 11 is a device for measuring depth information of a physical space. The operation of the auxiliary device 11 for calculating the depth of field information is that the signal transmitter 113 transmits a signal (for example, infrared), and then the sensor (not shown) detects the reflected signal, and then calculates the depth of field information based on the reflected signal that is sensed . Since the auxiliary device 11 and the lighthouse positioning system are placed in the same physical space, the timing of transmitting signals of the auxiliary device 11 must be appropriately arranged so that the auxiliary device 11 and the lighthouse positioning system will not cause interference with each other.

In this embodiment, the auxiliary device 11 and the traceable device 17 are integrated in the same device. The receiver 115 of the auxiliary device 11 receives a plurality of sensing signal groups 12 a,..., 12 b and a plurality of sensing signal groups 14 a,..., 14 b from the trackable device 17. Each of the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b is sensed from the first signal transmitter 131 or the first signal transmitter 151, and each of the sensing signal groups 14a, ..., 14b is sensed From the second signal transmitter 133 or the second signal transmitter 153. It should be noted that in other embodiments, the auxiliary device 11 may not be integrated with the traceable device 17. In these embodiments, the auxiliary device 11 includes at least one sensor (not shown) electrically connected to the processor 111 to receive the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b, 14a, ..., 14b.

The processor 111 of the auxiliary device 11 calculates the signal timings 10a, 10c of the first signal transmitters 131, 151 according to the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b, as shown in FIG. 1C. In addition, the processor 111 calculates the signal timings 10b, 10d of the second signal transmitters 133, 153 according to the sensing signal groups 14a, ..., 14b, as shown in FIG. 1C. Next, the processor 111 determines a signal timing 10e that does not overlap with the signal timings 10a and 10c and does not overlap with the signal timings 10b and 10d according to the signal timings 10a and 10c and the signal timings 10b and 10d, as shown in FIG. 1C. After that, the signal transmitter 113 can transmit a plurality of signals according to the signal timing 10e. In addition, when the auxiliary device 11 is a depth-of-field camera using infrared, the time interval corresponding to the signal timing 10e is the time period during which it operates (that is, the signal transmitter 113 can transmit multiple signals during the time corresponding to the signal timing 10e. And the receiver 115 or at least one sensor can receive / sense the sensing signal group at a time corresponding to the signal timing 10e so as to measure the depth of field information of the physical space).

Since the signal timing 10e used by the auxiliary device 11 does not overlap with the signal timing 10a, 10c and does not overlap with the signal timing 10b, 10d, the signal transmitted by the auxiliary device 11 does not cause interference with the lighthouse positioning system. Specifically, a beacon positioning system determines the signal timings 10a, 10b corresponding to the first signal transmitter 131, the second signal transmitter 133, the first signal transmitter 151, and the second signal transmitter 153 by a host / computer. , 10c, 10d, and sends information related to the signal timings 10a, 10b, 10c, 10d to the traceable device 17. Since the traceable device 17 knows that it is using the signal timings 10a, 10b, 10c, and 10d, it will ignore the signals issued according to the signal timing 10e. In addition, since the auxiliary device 11 knows that it transmits signals at the signal timing 10e, it will not be interfered by the signals transmitted by the lighthouse positioning system. Through the auxiliary device 11 provided in the first embodiment, simultaneous use of a lighthouse positioning technology with high accuracy and exploration of depth of field information in a physical space can be achieved.

For the second embodiment of the present invention, please refer to FIG. 1A and FIG. 2. In the second embodiment, the operations, functions and technical effects that the auxiliary device 11 can perform are substantially the same as those described in the first embodiment. The main difference between the first and second embodiments is how the auxiliary device 11 determines the signal timing used by its signal transmitter 113 and the determined signal timing. The following description will focus only on the differences between the second embodiment and the first embodiment.

In this embodiment, the processor 111 determines whether at least a first interference value caused by the sensing signal group 12a, ..., 12b to the signal transmitter 113 is greater than a threshold value, and also determines the sensing signal group 14a, ... Whether the at least one second interference value caused by the signal transmitter 113 by the 14b is greater than the threshold value. When the processor 111 subsequently determines the signal timing for the signal transmitter 113, it will avoid those periods / signal timing that will cause greater interference.

It is assumed that the processor 111 determines that the at least one first interference value caused by the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b is greater than the threshold value, and the at least one second caused by the sensing signal groups 14a, ..., 14b. The interference value is less than this threshold. The at least one first interference value caused by the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b is greater than the threshold value, and each of the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b is sensed from the first signal transmitter. 131 or the first signal transmitter 151, so it is necessary to avoid the signal timings 10a and 10c used by the first signal transmitters 131 and 151, as shown in FIG. Specifically, the processor 111 calculates the signal timings 10a, 10c of the first signal transmitters 131, 151 according to the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b, and then determines a signal timing 10a, 10a, Signal timing 20 of non-overlapping 10c, as shown in Figure 2. After that, the signal transmitter 113 can transmit a plurality of signals according to the signal timing 20. When the auxiliary device 11 is a depth-of-field camera using infrared, the time interval corresponding to the signal timing 20 is the time period during which it operates (that is, the signal transmitter 113 can transmit a plurality of signals during the time corresponding to the signal timing 20 and receive The device 115 or at least one sensor may receive / sense the sensing signal group at a time corresponding to the signal timing 20 so as to measure the depth information of the physical space), so as to measure the depth information of the physical space.

In this embodiment, when the processor 111 determines the signal timing for the signal transmitter 113, it only avoids those periods / signal timing that will cause greater interference. Therefore, the signal used by the signal transmitter 113 of the auxiliary device 11 The timing sequence 20 and the signal timing sequences 10b and 10d used by the second signal transmitters 133 and 153 may partially overlap, as shown in FIG. 2. In some implementations, signal transmitters that use overlapping signal timings can use different wavelengths (ie, use frequency division technology) to maintain accurate positioning effects and obtain correct depth of field information. Specifically, the second signal transmitters 133 and 153 may use the first wavelength, and the signal transmitter 113 may use the second wavelength, and the first wavelength is different from the second wavelength.

The foregoing description is based on the fact that the at least one first interference value caused by the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b is greater than the threshold value and the at least one second interference value caused by the sensing signal groups 14a, ..., 14b is less than The threshold value is taken as an example. Those with ordinary knowledge in the technical field to which the present invention pertains should be able to understand when the at least one first interference value caused by the sensing signal groups 12a, ..., 12b is smaller than the threshold value and sensing. How the auxiliary device 11 determines the signal timing for the signal transmitter 113 when the at least one second interference value caused by the signal groups 14a,.

As can be seen from the above description, when determining the signal timing for its signal transmitter 113, the auxiliary device 11 avoids those periods / signal timing that will cause greater interference, so the signals transmitted by the auxiliary device 11 will not cause a beacon positioning system. Obvious interference. If the frequency division technology is used, the beacon positioning system can maintain accurate positioning effect, and the auxiliary device 11 can obtain more accurate depth of field information. Through the auxiliary device 11 provided in the second embodiment, it is realized to simultaneously use a lighthouse positioning technology with high accuracy and explore depth of field information in a physical space.

The above embodiments are only used to exemplify some aspects of the present invention, and to explain the technical features of the present invention, but not to limit the protection scope and scope of the present invention. Any arrangement of change or equality that can be easily performed by those with ordinary knowledge in the technical field to which the present invention pertains belongs to the scope claimed by the present invention, and the scope of protection of the rights of the present invention is subject to the scope of patent application.

Claims (11)

    An auxiliary device for a lighthouse positioning system. The lighthouse positioning system includes a first positioning base station and a second positioning base station. The first positioning base station includes a first signal transmitter and a second positioning base station. Signal transmitter, the second positioning base station includes a first signal transmitter and a second signal transmitter, and the auxiliary device includes: a processor, calculating the first signals according to a plurality of first sensing signal groups A first signal timing of one of the transmitters, a second signal timing of the second signal transmitters is calculated according to the plurality of second sensing signal groups, and a first signal timing is determined according to the first signal timing and the second signal timing. Three signal timing, wherein each of the first sensing signal groups is sensed from one of the first signal transmitters, and each of the second sensing signal groups is sensed from one of the second signal transmitters, the The third signal timing does not overlap with the first signal timing, and the third signal timing does not overlap with the second signal timing; and a signal transmitter electrically connected to the processor, and according to the third signal A plurality of transmit sequence signals.         The auxiliary device according to claim 1, further comprising: a receiver electrically connected to the processor, and receiving the first sensing signal group and the The second sensing signal group.         The auxiliary device according to claim 1, further comprising: at least one sensor, which is electrically connected to the processor, and senses the first sensing signal group and the second sensing signal group.         The auxiliary device according to claim 1, wherein the first signal transmitter is an infrared light emitting diode (IR LED), the second signal transmitter is an infrared laser transmitter, and the The auxiliary device is a device using infrared rays.         The auxiliary device according to claim 4, wherein the auxiliary device is a depth-of-field camera.         An auxiliary device for a lighthouse positioning system. The lighthouse positioning system includes a first positioning base station and a second positioning base station. The first positioning base station includes a first signal transmitter and a second signal transmitter. The second positioning base station includes a first signal transmitter and a second signal transmitter. The auxiliary device includes: a signal transmitter; and a processor, which is electrically connected to the signal transmitter and used to determine the complex number. At least one first interference value caused by the first sensing signal group to the signal transmitter is greater than a threshold value, it is determined that at least one second interference value caused by the plurality of second sensing signal groups to the signal transmitter is less than According to the threshold value, a first signal timing of one of the first signal transmitters is calculated according to the first sensing signal group, and a second signal timing is determined according to the first signal timing, wherein each of the first sensing signals The signal set is sensed from one of the first signal transmitters, and each of the second sensing signal sets is sensed from one of the second signal transmitters, and the second signal timing and the first signal transmitter are The timing does not overlap; wherein the signal transmitter transmits a plurality of signals according to the second timing signal.         The auxiliary device according to claim 6, further comprising: a receiver electrically connected to the processor, and receiving the first sensing signal group and the The second sensing signal group.         The auxiliary device according to claim 6, further comprising: at least one sensor electrically connected to the processor, and sensing the first sensing signal group and the second sensing signal group.         The auxiliary device according to claim 6, wherein the second signal transmitter and the signal transmitter included in the auxiliary device use different wavelengths.         The auxiliary device according to claim 6, wherein the first signal transmitter is an infrared light emitting diode, the second signal transmitter is an infrared laser transmitter, and the auxiliary device is a device using infrared rays.         The auxiliary device according to claim 10, wherein the auxiliary device is a depth of field camera.